Dentsu announces winners of Rise Up Creative Challenge
Dentsu’s flagship schools programme, The Code, partnered with Co-op for the return of their pioneering Rise Up Creative Challenge, and has today announced the winners
The Code is designed to open doors to young people who might not have considered a career in the media industry and aims to give them the tools and support to launch their careers. The Rise Up Creative Challenge supports this initiative by challenging young people across the UK to provide creative solutions to real briefs from clients with a social purpose.
Founded in the UK in 2016, The Code has now launched in 11 markets and supports dentus’s goal to help 100,000 young people to become empowered digital citizens over the next decade, alongside the organisation’s wider social purpose to inspire people everywhere towards a new way of living.
This year’s edition saw students working on three areas of focus for the Co-op’s sustainability strategy: Community, Healthy Living, and A Better World.
The challenge was developed in collaboration with overlooked talent specialist MyKindaFuture and is specifically aimed at female and minority youth who are under-represented in the industry. This year saw 675 students participate; 50% were female, 77% were from outside London, and 67% were from a minority ethnic background. This corroborates one of the principal aims of The Code: to create opportunities for under-represented groups who have brilliant creative ideas but who may face systemic barriers to sharing these ideas with the world.
The winner, Vaishnavi from Nonsuch High School, presented her ‘100 for 100’ campaign that aims to create healthy eating and living habits in 5-12 year olds through a clever point-scoring game. The judges, including Co-Op customer director Ali Jones, were particularly impressed with the insights and data that Vaishnavi used to support her campaign, as well as the beautiful presentation and eye-catching design.
Vaishnavi commented: “I was not expecting this; thank you so much! I really enjoyed creating this campaign. It’s been such a fun experience and I also want to say a huge congratulations to everyone else involved!”
Emma, a highly commended winner from Global Academy, added: “All these issues are really important, so we need to make sure we don’t stop here. Everyone involved needs to keep campaigning for these changes to make things better in our world. It doesn’t matter if you won or not, we all need to keep working on resolutions for these issues.”
Ali Jones, customer director at the Co-Op: “Supporting young people through the pandemic has been a key focus for us. We’re delighted to have partnered with The Code programme to give students across the country an opportunity to come up with tangible ways to support their communities while at the same time opening up greater opportunities for their own futures.”
All finalists are invited to join dentsu and Co-op for work experience this summer and will receive ongoing mentoring and support from industry experts. Finalists also received a prize package of sustainably-sourced gifts from dentsu and vouchers to spend at their local Co-op, with the overall winner awarded a digital tablet to further their creative pursuits.